We have experimented with bedridden men — men who were able to sit up[13]. We put black oilcloth covers or aprons over the beds and set the men to work screwing nuts on small bolts. This is a job that has to be done by hand and on which fifteen or twenty men are kept busy in the Magneto Department. The men in the hospital could do it just as well as the men in the shop and they were able to receive their regular wages. In fact, their production was about 20 per cent., I believe, above the usual shop production. No man had to do the work unless he wanted to. But they all wanted to. It kept time from hanging on their hands. They slept and ate better and recovered more rapidly.
(…)
At the time of the last analysis of employed, there were 9,563 sub-standard men. Of these, 123 had crippled or amputated arms, forearms, or hands. One had both hands off. There were 4 totally blind men, 207 blind in one eye, 253 with one eye nearly blind, 37 deaf and dumb, 60 epileptics, 4 with both legs or feet missing, 234 with one foot or leg missing. The others had minor impediments»[14] (Ch. 7, «The Terror of the Machine»)
Having read this an impudent Marxist propagandist will say that the infamous capitalist made his fortune out of invalids’ work disguising the desire to make profit by talking about human dignity of the cripples employed at his factories, comparing his «own» cripples to the cripples fully supported by social security institutions (as it supposedly should be in a society of established socialism and communism).
But when a cripple is fully supported by social security institutions and his creative and personal potential is not called for it leads to a corruption that only strong personalities can resist. It is so because man is a social being and if he is not a confirmed parasite he feels himself a normal person only when the society accepts his labor and recognizes the value of his labor’s product. Many invalids and cripples lapsed into spiritual degradation because they were not called for by society, the people around them refused to accept their wish to work having no ability and inclination to help a cripple realize himself or herself in valuable labor. Being fully provided for by social security was the last straw. Besides, historically real «charitable» foundations become a «washing machine» for money laundering and a sinecure for all kinds of parasites no matter whether those foundations operate under capitalism or under socialism.
H. Ford is more just in his attitude to employment of the sick and cripples than the bureaucratic practice of the Soviet «SOBES» (social care system in the USSR) that was satirized as far back as 1927 in a novel by I. Ilf and E. Petrov “12 chairs” (known in the West as “Diamonds to sit on”). On the other hand a significant part of Marxist political work (propaganda) was nothing else but being parasitic on the labor of others while enjoying full social support according to their status in the hierarchy of bureaucratic state machinery and sociological academic and research institutions. Therefore it is clear why Marxists slander H. Ford who does not tolerate stimulating parasitism under the pretence of «social security» and «trade unions», which would enable parasites to have their share.
Besides, H. Ford sought to ensure that the enterprise under his management did not produce people with occupational diseases and cripples by itself. Many people have heard the anecdote about the following posters hanging around in workshops at Ford’s factories: «Worker, remember: God created man but did not make any spare parts!» In fact even if such posters did hang in workshops they comprised only a part of the accident prevention system. They were not the only «means» of ensuring safety or an excuse of the «God help those who help themselves» kind used by a miser who holds saving on personal safety for a major principle of running a business.
Ford shared a completely different approach to industrial safety:
«Machine safeguarding is a subject all of itself. We do not consider any machine — no matter how efficiently it may turn out its work — as a proper machine unless it is absolutely safe. We have no machines that we consider unsafe, but even at that a few accidents will happen. Every accident, no matter how trivial, is traced back by a skilled man employed solely for that purpose, and a study is made of the machine to make that same accident in the future impossible.
(…)
No reason exists why factory work should be dangerous. If a man has worked too hard or through too long hours he gets into a mental state that invites accidents. Part of the work of preventing accidents is to avoid this mental state; part is to prevent carelessness, and part is to make machinery absolutely fool-proof» (Ch. 7. «The Terror of the machine»).
Impudent Marxists can say that these are just lies and empty talking. Yet Ford’s approach to design of industrial equipment and organization of operating it includes both parts of the slogan proclaimed by the CPSU[15] as late as the 1960s: «Replace safety measures by safe equipment!» At the same time Ford unlike liars from the CPSU Central Committee of the “zastoi” (stagnation) period does not contrast «safe equipment» to «safety measures» (i.e. safe methods of work organization and of operating industrial equipment). He considers them to be the two constituents of industrial safety whereby both the equipment and work organization must be safe. Besides, Ford did some practical work to solve the problem of safe equipment and achieved success half a century before the CPSU called for it without having a practical solution. And those who denounce the inhumanity of Fordizm in the form it was applied by Ford himself should also bother to learn that Ford concludes the 7th chapter with the following words:
«Workmen will wear unsuitable clothing — ties that may be caught in a pulley, flowing sleeves, and all manner of unsuitable articles[16]. The bosses have to watch for that, and they catch most of the offenders. New machines are tested in every way before they are permitted to be installed. As a result we have practically no serious accidents. Industry needs not exact a human toll».
The attitude of personnel to their own safety described by Ford makes it clear that true humanism of labor and of social relations on the whole does not totally and exclusively depend on somebody from among the owners or managers of an enterprise. It is determined by cultural development on the whole and by the standard of work at a given enterprise in particular.
Yet sometimes the worker permits himself to start working in clothes unfit for it or to work drunk or «tipsy». He avoids wearing security clothes and accessories (breathing masks, light-protective spectacles etc.) and violates technology and organization procedures of specific works («safety measures» standards). He does this under the pretext of increasing performance but actually for the sake of raising his income «right now» or for the sake of «simplifying» technology and work organization in order to «lighten» his work to the detriment of product quality and safety. The worker thinks it possible to manufacture reject products that could heavily injure or cause some other losses to the customer or third persons. If all this is the case one need not put the blame of employees (including the working class idealized by Marxism for no reason whatsoever) for occupational injuries, occupational diseases, reject products etc. on the management and capitalists — whether in a socialist or a capitalist state.
Ford unlike the Marxists who controlled Russia’s economy and gave rise to no less than a custom of concealing mass occupational injuries and diseases is indeed a humanist because he makes it a direct responsibility of the supervisors to «catch the sinners» caring about the «sinners»’s health and about the welfare of their families notwithstanding what the «sinners» themselves having a self-confident and irresponsible attitude think to be appropriate. And this is truly a difficult task — to protect fools from themselves and at the same time make them grow wiser if possible.